Touched by an Angel
by GIRL IN STORY
Summary: Aziraphale decides that Crowley is touch-starved.
1. Chapter 1

It started with Crowley's hair. After the Nopocalypse, he and Aziraphale developed a friendship with the Them, and the angel wanted practice braiding Crowley's hair so he would be able to do the same for Pepper. Crowley had never seen Pepper with any hairstyle more elaborate than a ponytail, but he _would _have screamed at his plants a bit, put on his darkest glasses, and miracled up a scrunchie, _if Aziraphale had asked_.

After 6,000 years, Aziraphale didn't need to ask before drinking Crowley's wine, Crowley didn't need to ask before breaking into Aziraphale's shop. Not to mention their former servitude muddled the issue of consent a bit for the both of them. _Asking _was for other p- for _people_.

They knew each other too well.

That was the problem.

Physical contact was different, at least for Crowley. Over the centuries, Aziraphale had Langston Hughes and Oscar Wilde, who probably kept his hair that length just so passing angels would stop to play with it.

"Looks like bloody Severus Snape," he hissed under his breath.

"What was that, dear?" asked Aziraphale. He was attempting the fishtail. So far French was still his favorite, but that was hardly a surprise. The angel preferred everything French: wine, bread, toast. Fries, but only the curly kind.

"Nothing," said Crowley.

He knew better than to mention Oscar, and not just because the angel would bring up Leonardo.

Crowley was a demon, not a bloody incubus. The only thing he had offered Leonardo was his services as a model. (The painting had borne a greater resemblance when the gilding was still intact, but at least the eyes still followed people wherever they went.)

"Are you alright?" asked Aziraphale.

"Fine."

"Only you've gone all tense, and I haven't heard you mutter this much since 2008."

"Yeah, I may have spent a bit too much time with those nuns. Good for gossip though. That's how I started the whole Nicolas-Cage-is-a-Time-Traveling-Vampire rumor."

Aziraphale made a noncommittal humming noise, and they lapsed back into silence.

Crowley tried to relax his shoulders, but when he was relaxed, he usually didn't _have _shoulders.

The next thing Crowley knew, he was waking up in snake form, with a tea towel over him. Perhaps he shouldn't have tried quite so hard to relax.

Aziraphale was sitting at his desk, hunched over a bit of paper. He didn't mention Crowley's impromptu nap, just offered him a distracted, "Good morning," even though it was early evening.

Crowley didn't buy it for a bloody second. They knew each other too well.

That was the problem.

So Aziraphale knew that Crowley was touch-starved, and Crowley knew that Aziraphale would spend the next 6,000 years finding reasons to touch him.

So _why_ didn't Aziraphale know that _of course_ Crowley was touch-starved, but that wasn't why it was a good thing he didn't need to breathe every time Aziraphale started fiddling with his bloody hair? Crowley had never been accused of _subtlety_. It might be the only thing he hadn't been accused of.

Not that Aziraphale was any better.

It started simply enough. A shoulder pressed against Crowley's while they sat on his sofa. A hand on the shoulder. Keeping the shop colder than usual so he had an excuse to tuck Crowley under his wing. The yawning-arm-over-the-shoulder bit was downright embarrassing, but worse was when he got the Them involved. Not to mention Anathema, Newton, rather alarmingly, Madame Tracy, and even more alarmingly, Shadwell.

Eventually Crowley relaxed when the Them ambushed him or Madame Tracy invited him to her bedroom (to cuddle, for a small fee, which she said didn't count).

He still got tense when Aziraphale touched him. Warning or no, which the angel began to give. Permission or no, which the angel began to ask.

Until one day, when Aziraphale snapped.

"Is it because I'm an angel?"

"I- What?"

"Because of the war? You saw me before, with the sword. I know you were scared to speak to me that day, which is why I told you I gave it away. It's been 6,000 _years_, Crowley. Don't you trust me? What can I do to-"

Crowley did not, as a rule, approve of the whole kissing-someone-to-shut-them-up trope. It was misogynistic and generally a bit rude. Neither of them were currently presenting as female (they liked being able to pee standing up too much), but _of all people_, Crowley should have remembered to ask permission.

He began to apologize, but before he could get any further than, "It's really your fault-" Aziraphale kissed him.

The angel really did prefer everything French.

* * *

A/N: Aziraphale saw Leonardo's sketch during his temporary cohabitation with Crowley. He got jealous, and decided to try drawing the demon himself, hence: the new hairstyles. Also, this is not especially relevant to the story, but: Canonically, they do need to pee (Crowley got up from his decades-long nap in 1832 to use the lavatory).


	2. Chapter 2

Aziraphale miracled a bed into one of the rooms above his shop. It was wrought-iron, with an Art Nouveau frame, clearly designed for Crowley (who had so loved the Paris Exposition of 1900, except for the Colonial exhibits, which they both found a bit racist). Neither of them made mention of it, but Crowley spent the better part of the day as a snake to hide his blush.

Aziraphale was worried that Crowley might get the wrong impression. The bed was an invitation of sorts, but they both knew Aziraphale preferred not to… sleep. He didn't know what to say. For someone who read so many books, Aziraphale had never been particularly good with words.

He need not have worried. That night, Crowley slithered up the banister until he was a human once again, leaning against the knobbed wood in a way that had to be far less comfortable than his nonchalance suggested.

"See you in the morning, angel?"

Aziraphale smiled so broadly, he was certain his jaw would unhinge, just like Crowley's. (There was a reason the demon did not eat in public.)

"See you in the morning, my dear."

So that was how Crowley moved in.

He kept the apartment, because: London real estate, but he spent all his time at the bookshop, sleeping, scaring off customers, and occasionally letting Aziraphale give him French… braids.

(The whole debacle with the braids had begun when Aziraphale saw the Mona Lisa sketch in Crowley's office. It was during their temporary cohabitation after the Armaged-don't. He got jealous, and decided to try his hand at drawing the demon himself, hence the new hairstyles. Aziraphale had given up on his artistic ambitions, but his double waterfall braid got a lot of Likes on Instagram, and someone had called him an "Influencer.")

One morning, Crowley did not emerge from his bedroom. A little after noon, Aziraphale tentatively knocked on the door with no response.

He was worried. About Heaven and Hell, and there was a _reason_ he wanted to keep Crowley in sight at all times, and it was the same for Crowley. Especially once he explained that the "friend" he had been crying over in the bar wasn't the same "friend" at his flat when Aziraphale called. It was him. Crowley had been crying about _him_. Crowley had thought he was dead. Aziraphale couldn't imagine thinking Crowley was dead, except that was _exactly_ what he was imagining.

He was equally concerned that Crowley had settled in for another hundred-year nap.

"Crowley? My dear? Are you alright? Only I know you like to get in a bit of plant intimidation before lunch and it's already half-past."

With a small miracle, his eyes adjusted to the dim light. There was a lump under the silk sheets. It groaned in a way that was at once reassuring and not at all reassuring.

"…Crowley?"

"…'zzzziraphale." It was more hiss than name. Aziraphale sat on the edge of the bed. Red curls spilled out from one side of the silky lump. He began stroking them. He could practically feel Crowley's head throbbing.

"Migraine?"

"Not specifically," said Crowley, which was once again rather less reassuring than it was perhaps intended to be.

"The other kind of pain?" Aziraphale asked hesitantly.

"...Yes." Crowley's voice was somewhat muffled by the pillow.

They had never discussed it before. Aziraphale knew he didn't want to, that he had tried to hide it, but six thousand years was a long time.

"You can't fix this, angel," Crowley said, eventually.

"No," Aziraphale agreed, "but humans can't miracle up solutions to their problems. Most of them can't even find solutions the old fashioned way."

"Technically, miracles are the old fashioned way."

"You know what I mean." Crowley's teasing put him at ease until he realized that was the point of it. "They're still _there _for each other, and sometimes- well, sometimes that's part of the solution, funny enough."

"Don't waste your time, angel. I'll probably just sleep."

Something unpleasant occurred to Aziraphale. "Is this… why you sleep?"

"Sometimes."

"There must be _something_ I can do. You've never talked about it with anyone. Have you? Of course not, who would you…" Aziraphale wrung his hands anxiously, which was something of a problem, because they were still in Crowley's hair. Once he had untangled them, he said, "Well, all the more reason to talk to me."

"What happened to 'stiff upper lip and all that'?"

Crowley was talking about the flood. Aziraphale had still been trying to justify his orders from Heaven. There wasn't really any precedent. Nuremberg certainly hadn't happened yet, although Aziraphale would feel more than a little shame when that verdict was announced.

"I haven't had a stiff anything since- Crowley, stop laughing. You _know _what I mean."

The thing was… Aziraphale knew writers, and Proust wasn't the only amateur neuroscientist among them.

It would help Crowley to talk, but Aziraphale knew how hard it could be to find the words.

"Actually, my dear, I have an idea. If you'll indulge me?"

Crowley gave one of those shrugs of his, like he was still unsure of how shoulders worked.

Aziraphale plucked at the silk until an opening presented itself. He lowered the sheets to just below the waistband of Crowley's pajama pants. His back was bare. It looked like the freshly melted wax on top of a candle, and Aziraphale realized that his wings hadn't just changed color. They had burned_._

Like _wicks_.

"It's just a scar." Crowley was all but whispering. "It doesn't hurt."

"What does hurt?"

That shrug again. "It was the lakes of sulfur, I think."

That didn't exactly answer Aziraphale's question, except that it did.

_"It hurts everywhere_."

Of course, Crowley didn't say that. Instead he said, "It's funny… I think the humans actually use sulfur baths for therapy or some such."

"Well, we won't try that then, will we?"

Aziraphale miracled some oil onto his hands and prepared to give Crowley the least erotic massage ever.

...At least, it was the least erotic massage ever until Crowley groaned. His golden eyes were closed, so he didn't see the blush that had settled over Aziraphale with every intention of staying.

"Angel, I have to say it."

"Say what, my dear?"

"You have miracle hands."

Aziraphale let out a soft chuckle. "Well, you are very tight. I mean- You know what I- Ahem. Are you sure all that pain isn't just stress tension?"

"Hmm," said Crowley, although it was halfway to being another groan. "Maybe I should retire."

"Yes, I do think that would be for the best."

Aziraphale finished the massage and miracled the excess oil away. Crowley went tense as he was joined in bed, but Aziraphale had learned to take that, not as an insult, but as the compliment that it was.

Crowley had known so little kindness. Still, he let Aziraphale into his bed. Into his heart. Still, he offered Aziraphale his own heart, over and over, even when his angel was the one showing him so little kindness.

"You don't sleep." Crowley's voice was somewhat muffled by Aziraphale's chest.

"No," Aziraphale agreed, his fingers automatically finding Crowley's hair, "but you don't eat in public, and you still accompany me to restaurants."

"Yeah, well, I get, you know, your company, and-"

"Indeed."

That shut Crowley up for a good five minutes. Aziraphale timed him.

"You should know," Aziraphale started, because perhaps he could find the words, for both of them. "I love you more than anything on Heaven and Earth."

Crowley ignored the implications of blasphemy in favor of asking, "And hell?"

"Actually, I'm planning to run away with Beelzebub."

Crowley gave an exaggerated gasp and got a mouthful of tartan pajama. "Too soon."

"It's been six thousand years since-"

"Too soon."

"Oh, my dear." Aziraphale gave Crowley another French… braid. "I am so sorry I ever let you doubt it. I love you more than anything in any world. I love you with all my vestigial heart. I _love _you."

Crowley flushed in a way that had nothing to do with either the migraine or the massage. "Well, who said a long engagement is a bad thing?"

So that was how Crowley proposed.


End file.
